


The Way Back Home

by KouriArashi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Angst, Depersonalization, Drug Abuse, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pack Feels, Post-Nogitsune, Self-Harm, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:36:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5510435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KouriArashi/pseuds/KouriArashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the nogitsune, Stiles ends up in drug rehab, where he meets a surprisingly familiar face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently I just felt like writing 10Kish of Stiles dealing with nogitsune trauma. A bit of a delayed reaction, but hey, who's timing?
> 
> Inspired by [this prompt](http://gingersnapwolves.tumblr.com/post/135351077684/supernim-slutzilla-weve-both-been-through)!
> 
> Heed the triggers, please - there's a lot of drug use and the problems that go along with addiction discussed, as well as some _graphic_ description of self-harm and some discussion of suicidal thoughts. (PS: I have zero idea how much drugs cost, and was not able to find a reliable source on this matter without getting arrested, LOL. So I just guessed at some numbers.)
> 
> Canon compliant up to 3B.

 

When Stiles’ father asks him if he wants something to help with the pain, Stiles says yes, because at least that’s _something_ he can do. He can’t do anything about the nightmares, about the blood on his hands, about the exhaustion of sleepless nights or the feelings of unreality that plague him everywhere he goes. But this strange ache that pervades every bone and muscle, the ache that’s lingered since the nogitsune chewed him up and literally spit him out – maybe they can do something about that.

Except that Tylenol makes no difference. Advil barely makes a dent. The pain laughs at Aleve and asks if he’s kidding when he gets a prescription for Vicodin. And to make things worse, pain that he had been tolerating before suddenly seems worse when he’s trying to get rid of it. After some debate, they give him a couple of Oxycontin. “Just to see if it works,” Melissa says, and they all know it won’t.

But it does, at least a little. He’s able to actually go running with Scott, even though he hates running. The pain isn’t that bad. He can handle it. So they give him a prescription and a thorough lecture on never mixing it with alcohol.

He’s back in school, despite the sleepless nights. He can’t really focus very well, but he tries. When weird supernatural things happen, the others confer in whispers. He doesn’t try to overhear. It doesn’t really matter to him. He knows that they’re trying to protect him, but he doesn’t feel safe. He feels isolated.

He’s cold all the time, and every time he closes his eyes he can see Allison dying in Scott’s arms, and every time he sees himself in the mirror he feels like he doesn’t know who he’s looking at.

“Maybe we should get you something to help you sleep,” Sheriff Stilinski suggests, frowning one morning as he watches his exhausted son spoon cereal into a bowl.

“Can’t,” Stiles says, not looking up. “It would interact with the Oxy.”

“Oh, I guess so. Does the Oxycontin help you sleep?”

“Not really. It’s delayed release.”

“Oh.”

Stiles looks up and forces a smile. “I’m okay, Dad. Don’t worry about me.”

It’s such a lie, but it’s his father that keeps him going. In the darkness at night, he thinks about the look on his father’s face after he had been de-possessed, the way his father had clutched at him like he was afraid he would disappear. That’s the only thing keeping him sane, maybe the only thing keeping him alive. He can’t face Scott or Lydia. Not after what happened to Allison. Derek isn’t really spending much time with them, and Stiles can’t blame him. So when things get bad, he reminds himself that his father loves him, that his father would do anything to keep from losing him.

Which is why, three nights later when he’s so desperate to sleep that he’s ready to do anything, he crushes one of the Oxycontin and washes it down with a mouthful of ginger ale. It tastes terrible, but he figures that crushing it will cut down on the time release. It does. It does the job _beautifully_. Stiles falls back against his pillow as the drug kicks in. It’s not so much a good feeling as it is the total absence of bad feelings. And that – for him, that’s the very definition of euphoria. He stares up at the ceiling in a glazed stupor before he passes out a few minutes later.

When he wakes up the next morning, he actually feels like he got some sleep for the first time in years. He goes to school and takes a quiz and maybe even knows an answer or two. The others tell him that he’s looking better. He makes it all the way to third period before the pain starts to settle back in, and then he just pops a pill – whole and undamaged – and goes back to his work.

But the effect doesn’t last as long this time. The pain has started again by the time school is out, and he’s freezing. He goes home, makes himself a hot cocoa, and puts on a sweater. Then he sits down at his computer.

“Oxycontin tolerance,” he types into Google. The first link that comes up is an addiction blog. He stares at the link in silence for a long minute.

“Nope,” he finally says, and walks away. He just needs a higher dosage, that’s all. That happened with the Adderall in the beginning. His body got adjusted to it and they had to increase his dose.

He takes two pills that night, but it’s not the same as when he crushed it. He falls asleep easier, but the nightmares wake him three separate times. He feels terrible the next morning; the pain is almost too bad to move. He drags himself up, drags himself to school, but breaks down in the bathroom before the first class is over.

It’s imperative that nobody find out. If they figure out what a mess he is, they’ll – he doesn’t know. He just doesn’t. And he doesn’t want to know.

He crushes an Oxy and stares at it, thinking of that link in his browser. But it’s not like he’s snorting it or injecting it. He’s not a druggie. He just needs the higher concentration for it to actually work, that’s all. Stupid time release capsules.

Five minutes later, he slides into his seat in second period. “You okay?” Scott asks, leaning over him with a worried frown.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. He feels fine. Good, even. Distant, vague, relaxed. It’s the best he’s felt in days. He settles down to learn something. But the layer of fog that the Oxy sets over him doesn’t exactly help with that. He stares into space and just enjoys feeling boneless and far away.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Scott asks, several hours later. Stiles reassures him that he is, but before he takes his Oxy the next morning, he takes an extra Adderall. That will help him stay focused.

For a week, he actually feels on top of things. Oxy (crushed) when he gets up. Adderall when he gets to school. Oxy (crushed) when he gets home. Two Oxy (one crushed, one whole) before he goes to bed. He finishes his homework for once. Makes dinner for his father. Even calls Scott voluntarily and spends an hour or so talking about video games.

He looks in the mirror when he hangs up, and the sense of unreality is so strong he does an actual double take. Who the hell is he looking at? Who is that in the mirror? It’s not him. It’s not his body. The nogitsune took his body, and it dissolved into gray dust. He watched it happen. Watched it happen with eyes that _aren’t his_.

Where did this body come from? How was it made? None of their research has shed light on these questions. Is he still human? How does he even know he’s still himself? The body that came from his mother’s womb is gone. The body that his father rocked to sleep after his nightmares got bad is gone. The body that got his first kiss, that took his first Adderall, that grew and changed as he got older, is gone.

Who the hell is he?

He crushes a second Oxycontin for the first time that night.

When he wakes up the next morning, the remaining pills rattle dimly in the bottle.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Every high school has a few kids who know where to get drugs. They’re not the kids that Stiles normally associates with, but it doesn’t take much time or effort to figure out who they are. He’s not about to tell his father that he finished his thirty-day prescription in twelve days. That will only worry him, and his father has worried about him enough.

“Hey, uh,” he says nervously, as he approaches Chad Hinton, a senior from the wrong side of the tracks who probably has no idea Stiles exists. “Friend of mine said you could help me get some stuff I need.”

Chad glances over and gives Stiles an unimpressed up-and-down look. Stiles tries not to freak out. He hadn’t crushed his Oxycontin that morning, hoping that he could avoid taking a second after school, and it’s taking its toll on him, badly. He’s sweaty and trembling and his stomach hurts. This doesn’t seem to bother Chad. He gestures for Stiles to follow him into the bathroom, shoves a freshman out on his ass, and checks the stalls for eavesdroppers. “What do you want?”

“Oxy.” Stiles swallows hard. He can’t have anyone find out that this is happening. “And speed.” That’ll work better than the Adderall at keeping him focused during the day.

“How much?”

“I don’t know. However much you can get me.”

Chad rolls his eyes. “Be back here at three thirty. Bring cash. I don’t take IOUs. I don’t barter. And I don’t bargain.”

“How much cash?”

“However much you can get me,” Chad echoes, with a smirk, before he shoulders past Stiles and leaves the bathroom. Stiles takes a deep breath. He’s going to be okay. He takes his Adderall and heads to class.

“You don’t look so good,” Scott says immediately, and Stiles wants to scream. Scott means well, he knows that, but does he honestly think that Stiles doesn’t know how he looks? That Stiles hasn’t seen himself, whoever he is, in the mirror that morning?

“I think I’ve got a stomach bug or something,” he lies. “I’ve been feeling like I might puke ever since last night. But I’d rather be here. It keeps me distracted.”

Somehow, he scrapes through the day. He feels like shit, but it’s a different kind of shit from usual, which is good in a way. Scott wants to take him home, but Stiles manages to divert him and sneak off to meet Chad in the bathroom. He produces two separate bags full of pills.

“How much?” Stiles asks.

“Two hundred bucks.”

Stiles forks it over without a word. He needs to get home. He just needs to lie down for a little while. Take an Oxy and let all of this go away for a little while.

So that’s what he does. As he stares up at his bedroom ceiling, there’s some small part of him that comes to terms with the fact that this is a problem. He just doesn’t care. It’s not even his body. What does it matter what he does to it?

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Things are okay for a week or two. He’s learning to balance the drugs (even he can’t call them medication anymore) and school and family. He avoids the others so they won’t realize something’s wrong, but that’s nothing new. If there’s a change to his scent, it’s gradual enough that Scott doesn’t seem to notice, and Scott is the only werewolf around.

Until Derek finally shows up at one of their gatherings – Stiles is only there because it’s at school; he wasn’t technically invited – and frowns every time he looks at Stiles. They’re talking about some monster-of-the-week, which he cares absolutely nothing about. When they finally break up and drift apart to handle it, Derek pulls him aside.

“Are you high?” he asks, with his typical level of Derek-tact.

“No,” Stiles says automatically.

“You’re on something,” Derek says. “Do you think I can’t smell it?”

“I don’t care if you smell it,” Stiles retorts. “Yes, I’m taking narcotics. It’s for – the pain. Nobody knows what’s causing it, but it’s making it God damned difficult to function. I have an actual prescription and my dad knows all about it, so why don’t you back off?”

The art of lying to werewolves. He knows all about it by now.

Derek’s expression softens. “Sorry,” he says. “I just thought . . .”

“I know what you thought.” Stiles knows that he should give Derek a break, but he’s angry for no reason and Derek is a convenient target. “I know what everyone thinks of me, okay? I’m well aware of the way everyone tiptoes around me. I’m taking care of myself and I don’t want whatever the hell kind of ‘help’ you think you’re offering.”

“You mean you think you don’t deserve it,” Derek says. His gaze seems to bore into Stiles’ face, through all the masks he’s managed to built up. “Stiles, what happened to Allison wasn’t your fault.”

Stiles is keenly, intensely aware that he has to get out of this room before he has a complete breakdown. He goes for the low blow and a hasty exit. “You’re right. It’s your fault. All of you guys’ faults. You could have stopped that thing, stopped _me_ , and you didn’t. So just leave me alone.”

He pushes past Derek and practically runs to the Jeep, just wanting to get away before anyone catches him. He winds up at home, crouched in the bathroom, hyperventilating. He needs to calm down before his father gets home. He doesn’t really have to worry about Derek telling Scott what he had said. Derek basically never wants to talk to Scott, so he’s safe there. There remains an off chance that Derek might tell his father, though, which means he has to get his shit together.

As much as he would love to take an Oxycontin and zone out, he’s running low. He’d already taken an extra just to get through the stupid pack meeting. He has enough left for tonight and most of the day tomorrow, but what if Chad can’t get him more? What if he has to find it somewhere else?

The idea is terrifying enough that he decides he’ll just take a cold shower and try to breathe through the impending meltdown.

He strips out of his clothes, catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and winds up on the floor again, choking out little sobs. He doesn’t know who he’s looking at. For a moment it was like a stranger had gotten into the house. What’s wrong with him?

He finds himself staring at a little scar on his leg. It’s from when he was young. He had tried to climb onto the counter and taken a header. Somehow he had hit a chair on the way down, and the corner of it had cut his leg. It’s a small thing, less than an inch long, barely visible if you’re not looking for it. But it’s there.

It shouldn’t be there. This body never fell off that counter. Never hit that chair. There’s no reason for that scar to be there. It shouldn’t be there. This isn’t his body and it shouldn’t have his scars.

Without realizing what he’s doing, Stiles grabs a washcloth and starts trying to rub it off. He rubs so hard that his skin turns red and raw, but the scar isn’t going anywhere. He needs a better tool. He throws the cloth aside and heads down to the kitchen, where he finds a cheese grater. That’ll do the trick.

It’s a bloody affair, but he manages to get rid of the scar, as well as all the skin surrounding it. He cleans the raw wound up with rubbing alcohol. The stinging pain drives the breath out of him. _That’s_ what pain is supposed to be like. Not this dull, pervasive ache. _Real_ pain. The sort of pain he deserves.

He cleans up like he’s in a dream and winds up on the sofa, staring at the television, leg tightly wrapped in a bandage and hidden underneath his jeans.

He feels fine.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Hey, Scotty.” Stiles slumps into a seat next to him in the cafeteria. Scott looks over with a friendly, genuine smile. Stiles has been avoiding the cafeteria of late, so he presumes that Scott is happy to see him acting like a human being. “Can I borrow some money?”

The thing is, Oxycontin is expensive. The speed is relatively cheap, but the Oxy not so much, and it’s the Oxy that he really needs. He’s been supplementing his income by writing papers and selling them to college students online, but as his dosage requirements keep going up, so does the price.

“Sure, how much do you need?” Scott is already reaching for his wallet.

Stiles licks his lips nervously. “Two hundred dollars?”

Scott stops reaching. He looks surprised – not angry, not suspicious, just surprised. “What for?”

“Roscoe broke down again. He needs a new, uh, catalytic converter.” Scott won’t know what that is. He doesn’t know fuckall about mechanics. “I can’t ask my dad, you know, we’re still in debt over the whole Eichen House thing.”

“Buncha crooks,” Scott says. “Uh, but yeah, no problem. I mean, I don’t have it on me, obviously. Can I just bring it tomorrow? Do you need me to drive you to the mechanic?”

“No, he still runs, he just needs that replaced before it breaks completely,” Stiles says. “I can take him in tomorrow.” He’s thought ahead this time. He still has three days of Oxy left while he was figuring out where to get the money. “Thanks, man.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Scott says. He hesitates, then says, “You know, Kira and I were going to a movie tonight. We were going to invite Lydia and Malia along. You should come.”

Stiles isn’t really interested, but he doesn’t want Scott asking a lot of questions or thinking too hard, so he says, “Okay. Yeah, I mean. I can’t promise I’ll be the best company, but sure.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Two Oxy, one speed, and three minutes with a razor blade gets him in fine shape for a movie with friends.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Two hundred dollars from Scott covers him for a week and a half.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“What do you mean, it’ll take a couple days?” Stiles tells himself that he’s not about to break down in the men’s bathroom at school.

“Chill, little man,” Chad says. “You know that I don’t get this stuff from the Oxy fairy, right? Nobody leaves it under my pillow at night.”

“You know that I don’t take this stuff for fun, right?” Stiles shoots back.

“Trust me, I’ve noticed,” Chad says. “I’ll have it by the end of the day tomorrow.”

Stiles takes a deep breath. He has three tablets left. That can get him twenty-four hours if he’s careful.

“Oh, and the price has gone up,” Chad says. “Five hundred bucks.”

“What?!” Stiles nearly hits the ceiling.

Chad just smirks at him. “Supply and demand, little man. Supply and demand.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

He had scraped together the three hundred dollars he had thought he would need, but now he needs two hundred more – by the next day. He takes deep breaths and tells himself that he can do this. Goes home and logs onto the website where desperate college students need papers written for them. Selects one that looks doable, gets the details, and gets to work.

It’s so hard to focus. He’s had enough Adderall, but only taken half of his typical after school Oxy dosage since he needs to stretch what he has. He’s shaking and sore and inches away from having a complete meltdown.

“Hey, what are you up to, locked away in here?” his father asks, poking his head around the door.

“Just – school work,” Stiles says.

His father frowns. “You don’t look very good. Are you sick?”

“I threw up earlier,” Stiles admits. “It’s probably just a bug. I’m okay, Dad. Just trying to distract myself.”

“Okay. Let me know if you need anything, okay? I’m going to order something for dinner. Do you think you’ll be up to eating?”

“Yeah, but not takeout. I’ll probably just have some crackers and ginger ale.”

“Okay.”

Left to his own devices, Stiles finds himself staring at his hands. They don’t look like his, but he can’t figure out why. Are the fingers too long? Too pale? Knuckles too big? They’re identical to his hands in every way, but they’re _wrong_. They’re not his hands.

He’s about an inch away from holding them in scalding water until they melt off when he realizes that he won’t be able to type if he does that. No typing means no money, and no money means no Oxy.

He burns his legs instead. The endorphin rush gets the first three pages of the paper written. He’s over halfway there. He doesn’t dare take his Oxy until it’s time for him to go to bed, or he’ll never get any sleep. So he struggles through the rest of it, hopes that the paper isn’t gibberish, and collapses into a drugged sort of sleep.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Gibberish or no, the student pays for it, so Stiles finds himself at the bank the next morning to withdraw the cash. The ATM won’t let him, and he winds up hovering until the bank actually opens.

“Sorry, the payment hasn’t finished processing yet,” the teller says.

Stiles nearly breaks down into tears. “But I need the money,” he says.

“Electronic payments take up to twenty-four hours to be available,” she says, in an apologetic tone.

After several deep breaths, Stiles thanks her and leaves the bank. He crushes his last two Oxy and swallows them down before he can manage to think. That’ll hold him for a few hours. Buy him time to figure out what to do.

He knows that his father is basically broke. He can’t ask Scott for money again so soon. Lydia and Derek probably both have the cash, but they’re both way too smart. They would want to know why he wanted it, and they wouldn’t believe any of the lies he can come up with. He supposes he could ask Peter – that jerk doesn’t get his expensive taste from nowhere – but first he would have to _find_ Peter and he has no idea how to do that without asking Derek.

There’s one more place he can go. He had told himself he wouldn’t do it. But this is an emergency. He just needs to get through the day. He can get the money first thing in the morning, pay Chad, and be okay for another couple weeks.

He heads down to the station. His father is out on a call. Stiles waits until nobody’s looking, then uses the cloned key card he made ages ago to sneak into the evidence locker. There’s sure to be plenty of drugs in there. It only takes him a few minutes to find a bag of Oxycontin and get the hell out of dodge.

Scott has texted him at some point to ask why he isn’t in school. Stiles tells him that he just wasn’t feeling up to it, that he’s still in bed.

“No you aren’t,” Scott replies. “I stopped by to check on you and nobody was home. Where are you?”

Stiles stares down at the text for what feels like an eternity. “Just went out for a walk. Needed alone time.”

“You okay?” Scott replies immediately.

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“I’m coming over after school whether you like it or not.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

He goes home to write more papers. The more money he can stockpile while he feels okay, the better. When two thirty rolls around, he takes two more Oxy and some speed to get him through Scott’s well-meaning visit.

“Hey, it’s me!” Scott calls out as he comes into the house. “Lydia, too!”

Super, Stiles thinks.

He stands up and is immediately aware that something is wrong. He feels dizzy and disoriented. The world is fading in and out with the beat of his pulse. There’s some sort of beautiful white noise in the background.

He heads down the stairs, stumbling. “Hey, guys,” he slurs out. His tongue doesn’t seem to be working right. Something’s wrong.

“Oh my God, Stiles!” Scott says, as soon as he catches a glimpse of him.

That’s not very polite, Stiles thinks, but he doesn’t manage to say anything about it before he collapses at Scott’s feet.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

  
Things fade in and out for a while. He’s aware of being manhandled, of worried voices, flashing lights. But he doesn’t really come back until he hears his father talking to somebody.

“ – taking it for pain. Would that make a difference?”

Whoever the other person is, he’s being very careful to speak in calm, soothing tones. “I don’t want to get too technical, but no. The results on his drug screen were sky high. A prescription dose of Oxycontin wouldn’t cause results like that. Same with the amphetamines.”

“Jesus,” Sheriff Stilinski says wearily. “He hasn’t been asking for me to refill it, though.”

“Getting that sort of thing off the street isn’t too difficult. That’s probably what happened today. Whatever he got was cut with something, and he had a bad reaction to it.” The man hesitates. “And there’s something else I need to show you. It might be a little upsetting.”

“Well, I’m already upset, so get it over with.”

Stiles is suddenly aware that somebody is drawing back the blankets that cover his leg. He jolts upwards, grabs them, and blurts out, “No!”

“Jesus, Stiles!” His father nearly falls over in surprise. “I didn’t realize you were awake. What is it, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t want you to see, you won’t understand,” Stiles says, feeling the tears start.

“Stiles,” the doctor says gently, “we’re going to take care of you, okay? But the first step is talking about what’s been going wrong.”

Stiles thinks that’s a load of bullshit, but he’s exhausted and weak and can’t really stop him as he draws aside the blankets and then the hospital robe to show the tortured, mutilated flesh of his legs. Stiles doesn’t want to see them, so he looks at his father. That’s a mistake. The color drains out of Sheriff Stilinski’s face.

“Jesus, what happened?” he asks Stiles. “I thought the others had been keeping you out of trouble! Who did this? _What_ did this?”

Stiles can’t help it. He rolls onto his side and starts crying helplessly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Still soothing, the doctor says, “Self-harm isn’t uncommon in trauma victims - ”

“ _Self_ harm?” Sheriff Stilinski’s voice rises in alarm. “Stiles, you did this _to yourself_?”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles repeats, the words barely a moan. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

There’s a long silence. Stilinski gathers himself and says, “Doc, can I have some time alone with my son?”

“Sure. Just ring for the nurse if you need anything.”

The room is quiet. Stiles can’t stop crying. He doesn’t dare look at his father. But he’s startled when the bed shifts, when his father lifts him up to make room. Stiles lets himself be maneuvered so his face is resting against his father’s shoulder, with his father’s arms around his waist.

“God, I wish you had told me,” Stilinski murmurs. “I know I can’t really understand, but – the thought of you being in this much pain – and I didn’t even know. We all thought you were handling it so well.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles mumbles again.

His father hugs him tighter. “This isn’t your fault, so don’t apologize. We’re going to take care of you, okay? We’re going to take care of everything.”

“You can’t,” Stiles says. “You can’t, that’s why I didn’t say anything. There’s nothing you can do. You can’t _fix_ this. You can’t fix me. I’m broken. I’ll never – I’ll never be okay. I just wanted to stop hurting.”

Now it’s his father’s voice which is very carefully quiet and calm. “Stiles, did you – did you overdose on purpose?”

“No!” Stiles says, jolted out of his despair. “No, I just – I didn’t mean to – didn’t even know I was going to. I just – that’s why I was taking it. It was the only thing that made me not care about how much I hurt. How much I’ll always hurt.”

His father rocks him back and forth. “You know, that I understand, at least a little. Don’t you remember what I was like after your mother died? How much I was drinking? I never meant to let it get that bad. It was just the only thing that helped, even a little. But things do get better, Stiles. They do. It takes time, it takes love. But they get better.”

“I don’t want to get better.” Stiles looks up at his father, trembling. “I don’t – deserve to get better.”

“Oh, Stiles.” His father squeezes him tightly. “None of this was your fault. I know that it doesn’t feel that way, but it’s true.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?” Stiles asks. He’s crying again, and he knows he should stop, that he’s only going to hurt his father, but he can’t. It’s like a switch has been flipped, and he can’t hold the words back. “Why didn’t you all just kill me? Then Allison would be alive. Maybe – some of the others, too. You should have stopped me! I’d rather – rather be dead than this.”

Stilinski lets out a slow breath. “Maybe you’re right,” he says, which surprises Stiles. “Maybe we should have realized – that you would have wanted us to do anything to stop you. Maybe we were being selfish, because no matter what happened, we – Scott and I – we didn’t want to lose you. So we didn’t have that ‘whatever it takes’ attitude. Maybe we should have. So I’m sorry, Stiles. I’m sorry that we didn’t stop you. I’m sorry that you’re going through this because of things we did or didn’t do.”

The fact that his father isn’t telling him that he’s being unreasonable helps calm him down. He doesn’t know why, but it does. The sobs trail into sniffles. “Thanks.”

His father smoothes down his hair. “Why were you - ” His voice catches a little, but steadies out. “Why were you hurting yourself, Stiles?”

“Because this – this body isn’t mine.” Stiles looks at his father and wipes his eyes. “It’s not me. The nogitsune took my body. It’s gone. This is what it gave me, and I don’t – I don’t want it. I hate it. It’s not me. But I’m stuck inside it. The Void stole my body and this is what I’m left with.”

“Oh, geez.” Stilinski obviously doesn’t know what to say to that. “Well, that’s . . . that’s very messed up, Stiles.”

Stiles starts to laugh, short, hysterical, hyena bursts of laughter. “Oh my God, it so is!”

His father hugs him hard. “Don’t think of it that way, Stiles. I know that the whole thing where the nogitsune spit you out is . . . weird. I’m very aware of that. But don’t think of it like something the Void gave you. Trust me, it didn’t want to. We _forced_ it to do that. So if you can’t think of it like your own body for a while, at least don’t think of it as some sort of gift that the nogitsune gave you.”

Stiles manages to swallow, then nods. He lets his father hold him in silence. “Dad, what are we going to do?”

“Well . . .” Stilinski sighs. “You probably won’t like it, but to start with, you’re going to rehab.” He sees Stiles open his mouth to protest and says, “Son, detoxing from opiates is serious business. It’s dangerous. And you can’t keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Yeah.” Stiles leans his forehead against his father’s shoulder. “But the thought of going without it is - ” He shudders. “I think I’d rather die. I mean that.”

“I know. But we’ll find a way to take care of you. No matter what.”

Stiles nods and sniffles. “Don’t – don’t tell the others. Okay?”

“You know that they won’t think less of you, right?” Stilinski asks.

“Yeah, I do, but, just . . . I’ve put them through enough. Just – tell them that I collapsed because I was exhausted, tell them that, that you’re sending me to stay with my relatives for a few weeks so I can have some downtime. Tell them anything as long as it’s not ‘got addicted to Oxy and nearly killed himself by accident’. Hell, I’d rather they think it was an actual suicide attempt. At least that makes me look less idiotic.”

“You definitely do not look idiotic.” His father gives him a hug. “But if you don’t want them to know, that’s okay. At least for now.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

The rehab center isn’t bad. It’s a little on the sterile side, but less than a hospital. Hell, compared to Eichen House, the place is a dream come true. And detox isn’t as bad as he might have thought, because they don’t take him off cold turkey. That’s a recipe for disaster, the doctor tells him. They put him on some substitute opiate that will prevent withdrawal and hopefully prevent cravings.

It doesn’t work entirely. He still feels miserable, but compared to the few instances where he’s started to go into withdrawal, he knows that it’s nowhere near as bad. So he takes his medication without complaint.

There are counselors there, of course, and he’s supposed to talk to them. But he doesn’t know what to say. He can’t explain that he got possessed and killed a bunch of people. He can’t explain why his body doesn’t feel like his own.

He and his father talk about it on the drive down. Stiles tells the counselors partial truths. His close friend was killed. He feels like he should have been able to save her. He doesn’t give a lot of details about the depersonalization and self-harm, but he talks about feeling violated, and he’s pretty sure that the therapist thinks he was raped. He doesn’t lie, not exactly.

“This wasn’t your fault,” she tells him.

“Everyone tells me that,” he replies.

“I don’t mean what happened to your friend. I mean this.” The therapist gestures to their surroundings. “After what you went through – it’s natural that you had trouble dealing with it. Self-harm and addiction aren’t uncommon in your circumstances. And Oxycontin is highly addictive. It’s one of the most addictive medications on the market. There are hundreds, _thousands_ of people who have become addicted to it. Even when they started taking it for legitimate reasons. This wasn’t your fault, Stiles.”

He tries to believe her.

It’s a thirty day program. His father visits every other day, despite the forty-five minute drive. It doesn’t occur to Stiles until the second week to wonder how they’re going to afford this. He knows they don’t have the money. He knows that insurance doesn’t cover drug rehab centers. Hell, their insurance didn’t even cover his stay in Eichen House. He supposes that his father probably swallowed his pride and asked somebody for a loan. He would do that, if it was for Stiles’ sake.

There are nights when he lies in bed and stares at the ceiling and wants the drugs so badly that he’s ready to die. He’s shaky and sweaty and desperate. But there’s nowhere for him to go. Nothing he can do. He starts cutting again, using his arms so his legs have a chance to recover. His therapist has him write a long list of “alternatives” to hurting himself that he has to try before he’s allowed to. It helps more than he would have expected.

At the beginning of his second week, he gets to attend his first group support meeting. He’s pacing up and down the hallway when he sees a surprisingly familiar face. “Jackson?” he blurts out, not thinking about confidentiality or anything like that.

Jackson’s head jerks around and his face immediately creases into a frown. “The fuck are you doing here?”

“Me? What the fuck are _you_ doing here? I thought you were in London!”

“Yeah, well.” Jackson is scowling. “I’m not.”

“I can see that.” Stiles looks around, then asks, “Are you . . . here for the meeting?”

“So what if I am?” Jackson’s tone is belligerent. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

Taken off guard, Stiles says, “Hah, no, I’m inpatient. That’s how fucked I am. You?”

Jackson stares at him for a minute, then rubs a hand over the back of his head and looks away. “I never went to London. That’s just what my parents told everyone when I got admitted here. That I was going to a fancy boarding school. I was here for three months, now I just come to the meetings. How long have you been here?”

“Only a week.”

“What’d you get hooked on?”

Stiles doesn’t really want to answer, but hey, they’re being honest. “Oxycontin. You?”

“I went straight to the hard stuff. Heroin. Been clean almost six months, though.”

“Good for you.” Stiles lets out a breath. “Does it get easier?”

Jackson doesn’t reply for a minute, and Stiles thinks he’s not going to. Then he shrugs. “Some days are easier. Some days are harder. Just kind of depends on the day, I guess.”

“Thanks. For not feeding me bullshit.”

“Yeah.” Jackson doesn’t look at him. “You going to the meeting or what?”

“I guess I am.”

He sits through it, and actually finds some of the stories interesting even if he feels intensely uncomfortable listening to them. If anything, he ends up feeling validated. Yes, these people have gone through horrible things. The death of loved ones, abusive relationships, rape, loss. But none of them were possessed by an actual spirit of chaos and destruction. None of them had to sit idle while someone in control of them tried to kill everyone they loved. Hell, after the meeting, his response to what the nogitsune had done to him looks positively well-adjusted.

He grabs Jackson by the sleeve as he’s getting ready to leave, and the other teenager scowls at him. “What?”

Stiles releases him and looks away. “Nothing. I just – never mind.”

Jackson heaves a put-upon sigh, then says, “Come on.” He gestures for Stiles to follow and then walks away. They wind up in one of the rec rooms, a sunlit reading room. It’s so bright and cheerful that it feels unreal to Stiles. “So what happened?”

“I got possessed.” Stiles stares at his hands. “I hurt people. I couldn’t stop it.”

Jackson nods. “I feel that.”

They sit in silence for a minute. Stiles says, “It killed Allison. That wasn’t until – after they had gotten it out of me. But I feel like if they had – stopped it sooner – stopped _me_ sooner – maybe she wouldn’t have died.”

Jackson’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t speak at first, but finally says, “I heard she had died. Didn’t know what had happened, though.”

“I couldn’t stop it,” Stiles says. “But I _remember_ it. That’s one thing you don’t have to deal with. I remember everything, and I remember _enjoying_ it. I felt strong. Powerful. I felt . . . unafraid. And even though I wish none of it had happened, God, I wish I could feel that way again. I want that feeling back.”

“Yeah, well.” Jackson shrugs. “That sucks. But it wasn’t you.”

“I know.” Stiles shakes his head. “It doesn’t make sense.” He’s quiet for a minute. “Do you wish that we had . . . stopped you?”

“Sometimes. I mean, I know you feel guilty, even though none of it was your fault. But look at it this way. I _am_ guilty. Because you guys tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t believe you. Even though there was a part of me that knew damned well that you were right. I wouldn’t let you help me, and a lot of people died because of that.”

“Asshole,” Stiles says, without any real feeling. “I wish they had stopped me.”

“No, you don’t,” Jackson says, and Stiles looks up, surprised. “You just sit there and think about that for a minute. Think of that asshole McCall crying by your grave every night because he’d been forced to kill you. Think of your dad at the bottom of a bottle. Think about what that _really_ would have done to your friends.”

Stiles shudders. “But Allison – ”

“You didn’t kill Allison, you little prick.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that she’d still be alive if they had killed me when they had the chance.”

“You think they didn’t know they were risking their lives? After all the bullshit that happened with Kate and Peter, with me and fuckin’ Daehler? They knew that. They made that choice. Not you. So stop feeling guilty about it. It’s not your fault that _they_ chose to save you.”

Stiles doesn’t say anything to that. What can he say?

Jackson gives him a minute. “Look, man, I know it keeps you up at night. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but it _does_ get better. Eventually you just figure out . . . it’s in the past. You can’t change what happened. But you don’t have to let it define you. You don’t have to think of yourself as irreparably broken. You’re just hurt, that’s all. You can heal. It’s what people do. And if you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for other people.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Stiles admits.

“You can. You just have to stop stopping yourself.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does, asshole. You know why it got this bad? Because I do. I know exactly how it got this bad, because it was the same for me. You hid it from everybody. You didn’t want anybody to know. You told yourself it would hurt them _more_ to see you hurting. But that’s bullshit, Stilinski. You _know_ it’s bullshit. So talk to people. You’re gonna need to. When you wake up at three AM wanting an Oxy so bad that you can’t deal with it, you’re gonna need someone to call.”

Stiles looks up, then at the floor. “Can I call you?”

Jackson huffs out a sigh. “I guess if you really want.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m serious, though. You’ve gotta talk to your dad, to Scott. You have to let them help you. Because that will help them. You know?”

“Yeah. I guess I do.”

“And it’s not just them. What would Allison want?”

Stiles looks away. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do, you dumb fuck. You sure as hell know that she wouldn’t want you to be stealing and lying so you can get your fix.”

“How did you – ”

“I know, okay? It’s what addicts do. I did it, too. And you know what I mean. Allison would want you to be okay. She wouldn’t blame you. She was – that was the kind of person she was, you know? She died fighting for what she believed in. Are you going to respond to that by burying yourself in drugs? By hurting yourself and the people around you? Fuck no, you asshole. You get up and you fight. You do it for Allison. You live by her Code. That’s – that’s all you can do, you know?”

It’s the first thing Stiles has heard that makes him feel like he might be able to get out of bed the next day without wanting to cry. He nods. “Thanks.”

“Whatever.”

Stiles takes a deep breath. “Will you come back to Beacon Hills with me?”

“You don’t need me holding your hand.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that.” Stiles gives a sick little laugh. “But that’s not what I meant. The others miss you, you know. Especially Lydia.”

“I wasn’t good for Lydia. You can’t seriously be rooting for us to get back together.”

“No, but just because I don’t want you to date doesn’t mean that you should avoid her for the rest of your life. If you’re going to push me to do the right thing, I get to push back.”

“You know we’re not friends, right?”

Stiles laughs, for real this time. “Yeah. But I think I’m going to need someone around who knows what it’s like.”

Jackson gives another one of those put-upon sighs. “I guess I could stick around for a while.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

When Stiles sees his father the next day, he tells him about the conversation he’d had with Jackson, and how he feels better. He apologizes for saying that he wished they had killed him, and his father hugs him for five minutes.

“How’d you get the money for this, anyway?” he asks.

Stilinski arches his eyebrows. “That’s not entirely your business, you know.”

Stiles shrugs. “Just wondering which one of my friends knew where I am.”

After a moment, his father sighs. “Derek. When you were in the hospital, he came to me to ask me if I knew that you were using drugs. I guess he had figured it out somehow, and he wanted to make sure I knew.”

“What a prick,” Stiles says, even though he knows that Derek did the right thing, and he’s grateful.

“Since he already knew, I told him that you were going into rehab. I guess he knew a little about the financial situation – I assume he’d heard you bitching about it – and he asked if we needed money. If it had been for anything else, I would have said no, but . . . I wanted to make sure I sent you to the best place I could. So I said yes, and he’s footing the bill.”

Stiles nods a little. “Tell him I said thanks.”

“I will. But you can tell him yourself when you get home.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

It’s not like Stiles is magically better. He still wakes up from bad dreams two or three times per night. He still thinks of the sweet relief of the drugs with longing that makes him ache. He still sometimes hurts himself if he can’t deal with thinking about what had happened. But the worst of it is in the past. Surprisingly, the physical pain has not returned. He wonders how much of that was psychological, but he knows he’ll probably never have an answer.

When he tells Jackson about feeling like his body isn’t his own, to his surprise, Jackson just rolls his eyes. “That’s stupid. Don’t they say that you replace yourself every seven years anyway? Cells die and get replaced and shit. The body you had before already wasn’t the same body that came from your mother’s womb. Otherwise you’d still be a baby.”

“You know, that’s not actually true,” Stiles says. “About the seven years thing.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t change my point. You’re still you. If you downloaded your brain into a robot body, you’d still be you. What makes you _you_ has nothing to do with your body. I’ll grant that the whole duplicate thing is weird shit, but no matter what happens to your body, you’re still you.”

“I still hate it.”

“Well, hate the asshole that did it. Not the body you’re left with. Because sooner or later you’ll replace all of that and you’ll be back to being you.”

“I just told you, that’s not actually scientific truth.”

“Whatever, Stilinski. Excuse me for trying to help.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

He’s out of rehab two weeks later but not quite ready to face the gang back in Beacon Hills, so he winds up crashing on Jackson’s sofa for a week. His therapist thinks it’s a good idea. A little transition time to help prepare him to go home. And Jackson can keep an eye on him – talk him through the first real craving, which hits at one AM the day after he leaves rehab. Jackson is surprisingly patient with him as they go through all the exercises that rehab has taught him, leaving him drained and exhausted, but sober.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says, when the worst of it is over.

“Shut up, Stilinski,” Jackson replies.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Somehow, Sheriff Stilinski talks the others out of a surprise party when Stiles gets home. Stiles appreciates that, because he feels gun-shy, taut and nervous. If they had jumped out from behind sofas, he might have lost his shit. But he can’t talk them out of a party, period, so when he gets back to the house, all his friends are there, even Derek.

“So how was San Francisco?” Scott asks him.

Stiles takes a deep breath and reminds himself of what Jackson had told him. He can’t hide this. He _shouldn’t_ hide this. His friends will understand. “I wasn’t actually in San Francisco,” he says, and his father squeezes his shoulder. “I was in rehab.”

Scott looks blank, although Lydia and Kira clearly understand. “Rehab? Like, physical therapy?” Scott asks.

“No, dumbass,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes despite himself. “Drug rehab. You know, all the Oxycontin I was taking? Like, five times what I was supposed to be taking? Which reminds me that I owe you two hundred dollars, because that money you loaned me totally went to drugs.”

“Oh, shit,” Scott says, too surprised to be angry.

Lydia walks over and puts her arms around Stiles, hugging him tightly. “Are you okay now?”

“No,” Stiles says, and gives them all a wan smile. “I’m a fucking disaster. A piping hot mess. But I’m sober, and I’m here.”

“Well, we’re glad you’re back,” she says.

“Drugs? Really?” Scott, pure angel Scott, still looks confused about this.

“Yeah.” Stiles shakes his head. “The Oxy just made everything stop hurting for a while. Not just physically, but _everything_. And I’m not going to get over that in a hurry. But I think I can do it. I just kept thinking about how much I wished you guys had killed me. Then I stopped and thought about – how horrible that would have been for you. All of you. So I don’t feel like that anymore. I just want to try to be worth it. I want to try to live by Allison’s code, and protect other people. So just – I’ll probably need a lot of help. But I want to do it. For you guys, and for her, but for me, too.”

Everyone hugs him, and he talks with them for a while, is honest for the first time in months, about what he’s been going through.

Jackson shows up about an hour later, and everyone’s happy to see him for some reason that Stiles can’t quite fathom. He doesn’t mention where he’s been, which Stiles finds somewhat hypocritical and amusing, but it’s Jackson’s choice to make. They eat pizza and watch movies, and everybody falls asleep in a pile.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles wakes up at three AM needing to use the bathroom. He flips on the light and looks in the mirror. There are still dark smudges under his eyes, and he knows that there are scars hidden underneath the fabric of his clothes, but even so. It’s all him.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“You’re serious, aren’t you.” Jackson is giving Stiles the side-eye in an expert fashion.

“Yeah. If you’re going to stay in Beacon Hills, you need to be prepared. I’m training with Derek in self-defense. You should, too.”

“I’m a werewolf, remember?”

“So are half the other people who show up in this godforsaken town, and they’ll kick your ass if you don’t know what you’re doing.” Stiles huffs out a breath. “Come on. It’ll be good for both of us. We’re going to live by Allison’s code now, remember?”

“When did you volunteer me to do that along with you?”

“When you lied to the others about where you’d been instead of telling them that you’d been in rehab.”

Jackson scowls and looks away. “It’s not that easy, shithead.”

“Dude, I know. I didn’t give away your secret, did I? But you’re still here. And things are going to get bad again, because that’s just – what they do, in Beacon Hills. Besides, I don’t really want to do this myself, you know? Even though Derek is being suspiciously nice about the whole thing.”

“Yeah, well. If anyone understands being fucked up, it’s probably him.”

Stiles has to admit that he’s right there. “Come on. Just come with me.”

“Fine, whatever, asshole.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Dad?”

“Mmf?” Stilinski rolls over and rubs his eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just . . . will you sit with me for a while? I’ve got a . . . really bad craving. I need to do some of my exercises and I don’t want to do them alone.”

“Sure.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you asked me.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

He trains, and he works, and he gets better. The first time he saves someone from a monster, he finally forgives himself for everything.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


End file.
